The art of art-making goes through many unique processes: prompts, inspiration, feedback, collaboration, frustration, improvisation. One constant in this process is play – the notions of experimentation, risk, and curiosity.

State of Play invites you to join the creative process through a curated artistic exchange, presenting premieres and works in progress from artists across the Bay Area and the US paired with engagement activities designed to bring audience and artist closer together.

Octavia’s Brood: Riding the Ox Home (2015) is an immersive, site-expansive dance work inspired by the prophetic envisioning of science fiction author, Octavia Butler, and abolitionist, Harriet Tubman. It borrows its title from the collection of “short stories for social justice movements”, co-edited by Walidah Imarisha and Adrienne Maree Brown.

All members of the public are invited to participate in curated discussions, games, debates, and panels with the artists.

MKArts by MK Abadoo (they/she), and collaborators, devises intergenerational dance performance rituals that are place-honoring and accountable to community partners. Their work exists at the crux of dance theater and anti-racist cultural organizing, combining funk/family kitchen dances, classical American modern and postmodern dance vocabularies, neo-traditional Ghanaian movement, and a community-centered creative practice.

[Image Description: Black dancer leans towards the left of the frame with large fabric stretching away from the dancers body. Dramatic lighting illuminates the center of the fabric.]